RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- President Obama said Russia should move its troops back from its border with Ukraine and ease tensions by opening direct negotiations with that country's new government. The Russian troops massing near the border are doing so “under the guise of military exercises,” Obama said in a television interview that aired Friday. But those exercises “are not what Russia would normally be doing,” Obama told "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley. “And, you know, it may simply be an effort to intimidate Ukraine or it may be that they've got additional plans.” If Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to ease the situation, Obama said, Kremlin officials need “to move back those troops and to begin negotiations directly with the Ukrainian government as well as the international community.” The remarks aired as Obama made his way to Saudi Arabia on a mission to smooth relations with the longtime U.S. ally, recently dismayed by Washington's policy in Syria, Iran and Egypt.

In his scathing and deeply reported examination of the U.S. Border Patrol, Todd Miller argues that the agency has gone rogue since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, trampling on the dignity and rights of the undocumented with military-style tactics. "The U.S. Border Patrol is not just the 'men in green,' it is a much larger complex and industrial world that spans from robotics, engineers, salespeople and detention centers to the incoming generation of children in its Explorer programs," Miller writes in "Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Homeland Security.

LOS ALGODONES, Mexico - Osvel Hinojosa knew that an infusion of water would bring the Colorado River delta back to life. But in just a few days, a U.S.-Mexican experiment to revive the delta environment has exceeded his expectations. The water is running deeper, faster and wider than anticipated in a channel that was once bone-dry. Hinojosa has spotted hawks, egrets and ospreys flying above the newly flowing water. He's even seen beavers. "It's just amazing to see that we can recover the river and see it alive again," said Hinojosa, water and wetlands program director at Pronatura Noroeste, a Mexican water conservation group.

BRUSSELS -- President Obama is urging European and North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders to bolster the military alliance's presence in countries in Eastern and Central Europe near Russia, part of an effort to ward off further Russian aggression in the wake of its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Speaking after a meeting with European Union leaders, Obama said he has suggested that European leaders review and update their “contingency plans” at an April meeting. He said the alliance needs to “do more to ensure that a regular NATO presence among some of these states that may feel vulnerable is executed.” Obama's made the remarks before meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the midpoint of his European trip this week.

SAN DIEGO - A veteran U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was sentenced Monday to 7½ years in federal prison after being convicted of helping smugglers bring marijuana and undocumented immigrants into the U.S. for a decade. Lorne "Hammer" Jones, 50, a former Marine, received as much as $500,000 from smugglers, allowing a lavish lifestyle that included a boat, trips to Las Vegas and season tickets to San Diego Chargers games, prosecutors said. Jones had been an inspector since 1994 and worked at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings.

GAZIANTEP, Turkey -- Turkish fighter jets shot down a Syrian warplane Sunday in an embattled border zone, and Turkey and Syria each insisted the plane was in their airspace when it was downed. The downing was the latest border clash between onetime allies who have turned on one another because of Syria's 3-year-old civil war. Turkey has sided with the opposition in that conflict, angering the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Turkey blamed Syria for what it said was an aerial encroachment Sunday, while Syrian state television said a military official called Turkey's action “blatant aggression.” A monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said initial reports indicated the plane came down on the Syrian side of the frontier.

LOS ALGODONES, Mexico - The mighty Colorado River, which over millenniums has carved the Grand Canyon, does an unusual thing when it gets south of the Arizona-Mexico border. It dies. The Morelos Dam - sitting on the international boundary - serves as its headstone, diverting nearly all of the river water into an aqueduct that serves agriculture as well as homes in Tijuana. South of the dam, the river channel travels about 75 miles to the Gulf of California. Except when filled by rains, the channel is bone dry. But starting Sunday, the river will flow again, part of an unprecedented experiment by U.S. and Mexican officials.

JERUSALEM -- Tensions between Israel and Syria remained high Wednesday, with stern warnings and mutual accusations following the recent eruption of violence along their border. Early Wednesday, Israeli warplanes struck Syrian military targets hours after an explosion injured four Israeli soldiers on the Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused "Syrian elements" of cooperating with the attack on the soldiers. “Our policy is very clear, we attack those who attack us,” he said ahead of a cabinet meeting . Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Israel holds Syrian President Bashar Assad responsible for what goes on in his territory.

A San Joaquin County community college student arrested near the Canadian border for allegedly attempting to travel to Syria to fight with al Qaeda had boasted of a plot to bomb the subway in Los Angeles, according to a federal affidavit. Nicholas Teausant, 20, of Acampo, near Lodi, Calif., was arrested early Monday as the bus he was on neared the U.S.-Canadian border in Blaine, Wash. He was charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Paul Arriola probably isn't the most representative example of a Mexican soccer player. Born in California, he played for two U.S. national teams and, as a teen, trained at the Galaxy's academy in Carson. Though he could see Mexico from his house in Chula Vista, he never spent much time there and his Spanish is very much a work in progress. But Arriola, in his second year with the Tijuana Xolos, is representative of the direction Mexican soccer is headed. Because in recent years that country's top club teams have recruited dozens of U.S. citizens just like him to come play south of the border - something that would once have been unthinkable.